A Better Way to Change Boat Oil

Our Guest Blogger, Matt Bobryk, is an advertising writer who just sohappens to be a certified gear head and obsessed with anything with amotor in it. He wanted to share some of the latest innovations in boating with the readers of AmericanInventorSpot.com.

Here's his article:

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As a boat owner, there’s nothing more annoying, messy, and generally not fun than having to change your oil. Well, actually, having to re-pack the grease in new bearings is nastier, but changing oil is a close second. That’s why we’re excited to find out someone has come up with a way to do away with this dreaded, yet very important, task.

Allan Stevens, the inventor of an innovative system of changing boat oil, is no stranger to the boat world. He was a Naval Officer during Vietnam and has lived on a houseboat with his wife Sheryl for many years traveling up and down the Murray River in Australia.

The idea for this new innovation came to him while, big surprise, he was changing the oil on his houseboat. Houseboats are very large, probably the largest breed of boats a normal consumer would ever purchase. So, needless to say, it’s quite a task changing the oil on one of these behemoths. Allan was able to get his boat out of the water and up onto jack stands though, and was getting ready for just another day of normal maintenance. He was about half way through the job when all of the sudden the boat started to slide off the jack stands. Within seconds, the boat was back in the water with the used oil spilling out of it and slicking on the water’s surface.

Allan cares a lot about the environment, and was pretty upset with what had happened. That’s when it all hit him. The only way to truly prevent this type of harm to the environment is to create a sealed system where the oil can be changed without any risk of coming in contact with the environment. You see, both outboard and inboard boat motors have oil in the leg that sticks into the water that needs to be changed after every hundred hours of use. The gearbox must be in a vertical position when the oil is changed, meaning that the drain holes are underwater. This is why people normally have to remove their boat to do this change their boat oil... until now.

Working with his sons Greg and Glen, Allan got to work and came up with The Marine Oil Replacement System. This system that Allan designed and his sons built, consists of a plunger, a foot pump and three lengths of hose with threaded seals at one end of each hose. These seals are designed to provide a watertight connection to both the drain hole and the vent hole in the gearbox (or outboard leg). Different threads are available to suit different types of motor.

This is how it works. First, the gearbox is tilted out of the water and the non-threaded end of the first hose is connected to the foot pump. Then, you thread the other end to the vent hole on the motor. Next, the other hose is connected to the drain hole and the bottom of the plunger. After that, your just tilt the motor back into the water and pump away on the foot pump. The old oil is pulled out and is ready for safe disposal on dry land. After it’s empty, you just pour the fresh oil back in the other side of the tube. Then the plunger, in reverse motion, pushes the new oil right back in. Simple, time saving, and much safer for the environment. If you have ever had to change boat oil, you’ll love this new system.

Allan and his sons are still working on getting the system mass-produced and distributed here in the U.S., but keep your eyes open, this is going to probably take the boat community by storm.

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